Ben Coleman MP: speeches

Speeches

• 9 Sept 2026 · Pharmacies: Government Funding · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Member for Leicester East (Shivani Raja) on securing the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Sadik Al-Hassan) will be aware that measles outbreaks are increasing, not least because of a decline in measles, mumps and rubella vaccinations. The Government told the Health and Social Care Select Committee, on which I serve, that they need to do more with schools and GPs. We contend that they need to use pharmacies far more. Does my hon. Friend agree with me that as all families visit pharmacies, the Government should enable pharmacies to give MMR vaccinations and grip this properly, so we can crack the challenge of the measles outbreaks, which seem to be increasing in our country?

• 8 Sept 2026 · Online Safety · Hansard source

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  This is a really tremendous statement—I welcome it, and congratulate and thank my right hon. Friend for it. We have touched on the tech companies. Sadly, we can expect them to push back, and they may get support on the other side of the Atlantic. I encourage my right hon. Friend to work closely with our friends in the European Union who have similar aims to protect their children to give ourselves as much clout and oomph in the negotiations ahead.

• 7 Sept 2026 · Health Bill · Hansard source

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  Will my hon. Friend give way?

• 7 Sept 2026 · Health Bill · Hansard source

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  One of my concerns about the abolition of NHS England is that highly specialised services for treating the rarest and most complex conditions—of which there are only 79 in the country—currently sit directly with NHS England. It is not clear whether those services will continue to be commissioned centrally. Does my hon. Friend think it would be helpful if the Minister could clarify that?

• 7 Sept 2026 · Health Bill · Hansard source

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  I am also a member of the APPG, and I was also at that meeting. On the Health Committee, we raised the point about these short-term pilots, and we managed to get an extra year’s funding. I have to say—I will say this as the person I am—that I feel that if this was a problem that predominantly affected white people instead of black people, it would be taken a lot more seriously. I think that the Government need to reflect on that when they are deciding whether to accept this amendment and whether they wish to give sickle cell sufferers the full support that they need, which they are not getting.

• 3 Sept 2026 · Vaccination Rates: England · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales) and colleagues on the Health and Social Care Committee for securing this important debate. I am particularly concerned about the fall in childhood vaccination rates and what that means for diseases such as measles, which we had all but eliminated. Before I entered Parliament, I served as a councillor on the North West London integrated care board. Because our figures were so poor, I pushed for North West London NHS to deliver MMR vaccinations through community pharmacies. All families go to pharmacies, so it seemed an obvious thing to do, but I was told that it was simply too complicated. I pushed a bit, and I got two pharmacies into a sort of project. It was a start, but it was nowhere near enough. When I became a member of the Health and Social Care Committee, then, I was delighted to have the opportunity to pursue the matter. As has been mentioned, when NHS England and UK Health Security Agency officials came before the Committee in February, warning signs were already flashing red. The UK had lost its measles elimination status, London had the lowest childhood vaccination coverage in the country, and children were being hospitalised by a disease that is entirely preventable. It was extraordinary: I was strongly struck by the feeling they gave off of a complete lack of urgency in how they saw the problem. I asked whether anyone had assessed the cost to the NHS of under-vaccination; the answer was no. I asked why a pharmacy MMR pilot across 43 sites in the north-west had not continued; I was told that it had worked as a campaign, but making it routine was “a different question”. I asked whether that question was even being assessed, and it clearly was not. Sadly, since the Committee’s inquiry the situation has got worse, not better. As my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip touched on, UKHSA data shows that, as of 17 August, England had recorded 970 laboratory-confirmed measles cases this year alone. Of those, 650 patients were children aged 14 or under, and more than half of all cases were in London. I am not saying that pharmacies are silver bullets—the Committee also heard arguments about strengthening school-age immunisation services—but it should not be either/or. It should be schools, GPs and pharmacies. We should use every available route to help our children and their families. Officials told the Committee that they do not want to use pharmacies for childhood vaccination because they still do not know whether the evidence supports it. Surely, Minister, the obvious answer is to get the evidence. What are the Government doing to get the evidence? Will they get it by commissioning a proper evaluation of the use of pharmacies for routine MMR vaccination, with a clear deadline? In short, will the Minister ensure that the NHS stops prevaricating and acts before more children pay the price?

• 3 Sept 2026 · Children in the Social Care System: England · Hansard source

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  In my constituency, the care-experienced young people who live in Fulham benefit from the fact that the council recognises care-experienced as a protected characteristic. That means that council housing teams and schools and recruitment processes inside Hammersmith and Fulham have to actively check that their decisions do not disadvantage care leavers. They have to track outcomes, and care leavers have the right to recourse. Currently, this only happens if decent councils such as Hammersmith and Fulham choose to do so. Is there an argument for pressing the Government to make care-experienced a protected characteristic in law?

• 1 Sept 2026 · EU Foreign and Security Co-operation · Hansard source

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  At the moment, the European Union is taking big decisions to address the challenges it faces. Those decisions affect us, too, but we are not at the table—I am thinking of tariffs on steel made in Europe and the Security Action for Europe defence procurement programme. Will the Minister reassure my constituents in Chelsea and Fulham that the Government will press ahead with a summit this year, that they will get good deals for young people and on the price of food and energy, and that they will seek to be more ambitious and bold in getting us back a seat at the table so that we can play a part in making the decisions that affect us?

• 14 Jul 2026 · UK-Switzerland Enhanced Free Trade Agreement · Hansard source

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  I join the City of London and the British Chambers of Commerce in welcoming this deal—I’m smiling too, Minister! I am sure that the large number of my residents in Chelsea and Fulham who work in financial services will be delighted, too, and that they will have a lot of questions to ask. I wonder whether I could invite the Minister to come and have a meeting with them in my constituency to sell and make quite clear to them the opportunities, both in the City and across the country, that this deal now presents.

• 8 Jul 2026 · European Entry and Exit System · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to my hon. Friend for all that he is doing to sort out this mess. Does he agree that the queues and delays facing British travellers under the EU’s entry-exit system were entirely avoidable? Had Britain kept its seat at the table, we would not be subject to these to checks at all, we would have had a voice in the system design and roll-out over the past five years, and we could have made it work better. Instead, just as with steel and electric vehicles, we find ourselves on the receiving end of decisions rather than shaping them. Does he agree that is precisely why we need an ambitious new partnership with the EU, so that Britain can genuinely take back control and British people’s European holidays do not start and end in chaos?